Keeping It Simple Yet Strategic: Local Marketing Tips And Tricks For Retail Businesses

Local marketing is essential for local retailers, and reaching out to and engaging with your local customers is something that you will have to do. But it does not have to be complex, and sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.

In fact, the best thing is to focus on doing a few things and doing them well. So what should you be doing?

Sign Up with Google My Business

Even if you do nothing else for you SEO, sign up with Google My Business and optimize your listing. Fill in all the information, add some photos, add your location, and you’re ready to go.

You will then have a chance of showing up in the search results for relevant phrases. People might search for you via Google Maps rather than the main search engine, and you can also get reviews, which are essential to good local marketing efforts. These will show up directly in search to encourage more people to visit your store.

Advertise for Calls

Local search is where many people will come across your business for the first time, but getting to the top of the search engines can take time. However, advertising via PPC is instant.

If you want people to call you, you can use this as your CTA with Call Extensions from AdWords, then you just pay each time someone calls you, and you only pay what you are comfortable with.

It’s highly measurable, so try it and work out your ROI. And you don’t need to be a digital marketing professional to do this.

Engage on Social Media

Use the right channels to engage on social media. Instagram and Pinterest are two of the most useful for local businesses, and they are great for consumer goods.

But social media can be complicated, and you have to know how to get the most out of it. So keep it simple.

Just use it to engage with your customers, provide them with updates, deals, special offers and more to keep top of mind. This can help you to find new customers and improve retention, and you really don’t need to spend a lot of time on this.

Incorporate Digital Signage

Speaking of social media, one way to incorporate this into your in-store marketing is through digital signage. There are many signage solutions for retailers these days, and you can use digital signage to display a live feed of social media updates regarding your store or restaurant.

Do this to increase engagement, spread the word via social media, improve brand image, and more, all with very little effort on your own part.

Join Forces with Other Businesses

You can work with other businesses in your local area to send customers each way. Don’t work with competing businesses, but instead find other businesses that are similar to your own and that your customers might enjoy and form a strategic partnership.

They can send you more customers, and you can do the same just by advertising each other’s products and services in your own premises.

Keep Local Marketing Simple

You don’t need to get complicated with your local marketing efforts. The above ideas are all simple to implement and won’t take much time, but they can have a huge impact on your overall local marketing efforts. So try them out and find out which strategies work best for your business.

Alisha Bray has worked for a marketing company for several years, now in a role as a campaign manager. Outside of work she enjoys writing and can often be found answering questions and sharing her knowledge around the web.